Notebook PC Manufacturer Who Will Sell Parts?

gp310ad asks: "Fujitsu refused to sell me a basic part for my P2120 notebook PC. The part is the small daughter board which bridges the external charger to the internal circuitry. It is approximately two square cm with two connectors mounted. There are no passive or active electronic components on the board. I was told that I would have to complete Fujitsu technical training before I would be allowed to purchase this or any other part that requires removing more than two screws. According to Fujitsu, the hard drive (three screws) is 'not a user replaceable part'. Which brings me to my question — I am in the market for a new notebook PC and would like to know which manufacturers are 'end user friendly' when it comes to out of warranty repair parts. The model and features will be determined by what is available within my budget. However, I do not want to be stuck with an out of warranty machine from a manufacturer who will not sell parts."

Dell

[linkedlinked]

It's pretty hard to believe, but Dell may be just what you're looking for. I own an E1505, and they're actually sending me the Bluetooth module that goes inside the laptop, presumably in some socket on the motherboard, to add myself (and I purchased from Dell Home). At work, they just sent me three new motherboards and heat sinks, plus a bottle of thermal paste, to fix some OHCI issues I was having. They're brilliant, very trusting in the end-user installation department.

Re:

[linkedlinked]

I hate to reply to my own post, but I should have mentioned: The rep I talk to indicated that installing the part myself *would not void* my 4 year, complete care, you-can-pee-on-the-keyboard-and-send-us-pictures warranty.
Again, if that's not trusting, then I don't know what is.

Re:

[d3am0n]

hahaha, that's creepy dude, you might have been talking to me on the phone, I'm one of the canadian tech support dudes in Dells corporate/government hardware warranty support.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure you are, Sanjay. Sure you are.

(I kid!)

Re:

[d3am0n]

Yea we've actually got alotta dudes who're east indian and they fucking love it when we get guys who call up and think their talking to a guy in india.

Re:Dell

[epp_b]

Yea we've actually got alotta dudes who're east indian and they ******* love it when we get guys who call up and think their talking to a guy in india.

Hey, Canada has it's own version of Indian tech support, too! We call them "French".

*duck*



(get you're mouse off of that "troll" option, it was a joke!)

Re:

[scattol]

And getting the french tech support in Canada does mean that you will speak to someone who is pretty much local, not some guy lost in india. For that alone, the french tech support is more than worth it.

Re:

[dago]

Really ?

Are you sure it isn't outsourced to africa (tunisia, morocco, senegal), like it is for european french-speaking market ?

I started working with a woman from India

[artifex2004]

...when I went to work at a brokerage a few years ago. We went through training together, and I knew from the beginning that her accent would be a problem. Bright person, of course, but the accent was strong. When we got out to the floor, almost no customer would talk to her, and apparently some would be abusive to her, because she quit in tears a few days into the real job.

It's not always funny.

Re:Dell

[fimbulvetr]

I did this exact same thing with my D800 bluetooth module. I didn't purchase it new because I had no need for it, and it was quite expensive. Recently, I picked it up for $30 and did it myself. They also sell things like video card upgrades and cdrom upgrades (to dvd-r, etc).

Despite all the bad things people say about dell, my next laptop will most certainly be dell. The D/dock I purchased for the D800 will even work for a new D820 or D620. That's $150 I don't need to spend.

Re:

[linkedlinked]

Video card upgrades?

I'm interested in that. I have an integrated card, and I was told the only way I could step up was with a new motherboard. What did you upgrade from/to?
I may have to pop mine open to see if I wasn't being fed marketing bull.

Re:

[scdeimos]

I haven't yet seen a notebook that didn't have integrated video. However, when I bought my Gateway notebook with a docking station (as opposed to a port replicator) way back when I was able to use a video card in one of the PCI slots to "upgrade".

Re:

[rlk]

The Inspiron 8000-8200 don't have integrated video. They're a little dated, but I'm quite happy with my 8200 which I built from parts (I wanted to reuse the very nice 1600x1200 screen that I had upgraded my previous 8000 to). The 8200 is reasonably easy to service as these things can go, and it's easy to get parts on eBay.

Styling seems to be very in for laptops these days. However, I think the current trend of 17" WXGA screens is absurd. My processor is slow by today's rather excessive standards (P4-1.8

Re:

[Andy Dodd]

Yeah, Dell makes pretty complete service manuals (total disassembly, covering CPU replacements and such) available.

I have an E1705 now (I love the new 17" WUXGA screens), but I still use my I8200 quite a bit too. My first E1705 was a dud (as were many of the early Core Duo systems from any manufacturer, and I suspect I had a dud CPU from the symptoms), but the replacement is rock solid and as mentioned, by old I8200 still serves me well too. I do need to order a new fan assembly for it though... The fans

Re:

[afidel]

Actually a lot of the decent laptops have the video card on a daughtercard connected by an electrically compatible, but not pin compatible standard interface (now usually MXM for PCIe).

Re:

[Joe The Dragon]

New systems are staring to come with mxm slots
The 24-inch I-mac uses one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MXM [wikipedia.org]
http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/ [mxm-upgrade.com]
http://www.nvidia.com/page/mxm.html [nvidia.com]

Re:Dell

[Gentlewhisper]

The 24-inch I-mac uses one.

From the innovative company that uses laptop parts in their desktops and non upgradeable parts in their laptops.

Re:

[b0s0z0ku]

laptop parts in their desktops

What's wrong with that? You end up with a very quiet desktop with low energy consumption. Since the box is bigger, you actually have a lot of leeway as far as heat sink designs, so the desktop can be made to run cool as well.

-b.

Re:

[Joe The Dragon]

Higher cost ram
Pay more for a slower cpu then with a desktop
Video cards with less power then a desktop

Re:

[fimbulvetr]

I have the 32mb version of this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Inspiron-8500-8600-D800-G eForce-4200-Video-Card_W0QQitemZ110063239885QQihZ0 01QQcategoryZ74957QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVie wItem [ebay.com]

I can upgrade to the one linked above (64mb) , or to the quadro that come in the M series (M70, I think).

It's a bit of work, but a very nice option.

Re:

[damiangerous]

If you have the E1505 you might have an upgradeable video card. If you got the basic integrated Intel video you're out of luck. That one really is integrated and there's no upgrading. If you've got any of the ATI video options you can upgrade the card. I found this out the hard way when I heard the E1505 had upgradeable video so I only got the Intel. On the plus side it's quite good at 3d for a non-gaming card and the drivers are open source.

Re:

[itwerx]

Err, no, Dell is NOT the answer to anything any more.
      If you need notebook parts go aftermarket [notebookpartszone.com].

GOOD ANSWER. Mod parent up.

[Futurepower(R)]

GOOD ANSWER. Mod parent up.

Realize that the people at Fujitsu are dedicated professionals -- dedicated to work-avoidance -- and because they work for the company they are at the top of the work-avoidance hierarchy.

The work avoidance plan that is typical in situations like this is that the main company licenses a limited number of other companies, and it is those companies that might stoop so low as to actually serve the customer. The trick is to find one of those other companies that will sell for a r

Also... How to make yourself REALLY miserable.

[Futurepower(R)]

Also, I don't agree with the people who are saying to get involved with Dell Hell because it is possible to get parts.

My experience with Dell is that there is a social breakdown happening there. It's not nearly as bad as the one the U.S. government caused in Iraq, but it is bad enough that you might want to save yourself from grief.

There are sometimes weird phenomena where two negatives cancel, leaving a positive. Sometimes companies become so crazy that employees decide to treat the customer right ju

Re:

[Walt Dismal]

I disagree on Dell. One of my LCD monitors went out yesterday, a 3-year old 1800FP, and guess what? They won't support it. Manufactured July 2003. And if you look on their site - they have NO MORE support visible for LCD monitors. Guess I'm not buying a 24 inch LCD from them anytime soon.

What is happening is that some consumer vendors seem to be discouraging repair and pushing for you to replace the whole unit with a newer one, and more profit for them. So, before you buy anything, verify vendor support

I second that...

[AmazingRuss]

...over the last 5 years or so, Dell has been really great about shipping me parts and not GOUGING me for them when things are out of warranty.

Unlike HP, who wanted $800 for a motherboard for a unit they were selling for ~$900.

Hint to HP: I threw away your computer and bought a Dell. I hate being gouged...almost as much as I hate computers that melt their motherboards because of poor design. You may think of me as a consumer, but I do have a pain threshold, and you do have competition.

IBM/Lenovo thinkpads...

[Fallen Kell]

They sell their parts with or without the training. I picked up a few parts myself for a T40 Thinkpad which had a bad network board (wired and wifi), and a broken PCMCIA slot cover. They have full video's and instructions on how to disasemble thier Thinkpad series, from removing the keyboard, to replacing the steel cage that houses the removable media bay.

Toshiba

[toddbu]

Toshiba is pretty good about selling parts too. But there are limitations. Toshiba CPU fans and hard drives don't last very long (about a year for each, I switch to Seagate for hard drives). What really sucks about Toshiba is when you have to replace something like a hinge for the display. They have so many combinations that finding the replacement can be difficult if not impossible.

Re:Toshiba - I SECOND

[denebian devil]

I had to replace three items on my old Toshiba laptop over the time I had it: fan, battery, and harddrive.

The first was the fan, and I was very impressed with the way Toshiba handled it. They didn't fuss or anything, they just asked which part I needed, said how much it cost, and asked if I wanted it shipped or if I wanted to pick it up at a distribution center. That one took I believe 8 screws to replace (4 on the fan and 4 to get the cover off).

The battery was a no-brainer of course, hardly worth mentioni

Re:Toshiba - Carried

[oldstrat]

Toshiba has always been great for getting parts of machines that are reasonably new, even quite a few for old machines.
I've never had a bit of trouble from them.

Re:

[fostware]

Except Australian 240V 50Hz AC 15V 5A Adapters....

In the school I work at, everyone has 3 year-old Satellite A10s, and the minimum wait time through Toshiba is 4 weeks.

Naturally, we bought two floating spares, then swap them out whenever a warranty is required.

Re:

[thrillseeker]

I've used Thinkpads for a long time now. When they do break, it's usually about the time I'm itching for a "new" one. I usually have great luck buying something in the $500 range off ebay from a "reputable vendor" that still has a warranty. I got lucky with the A31P I bought - though out of warranty at my purchase it was described as booting only to a specific point - I recognized it from the description as a virus - got the system really cheap and had a fully operational debian runnning in about 20 minu

IBM/Lenovo

[darkwhite]

IBM.

The Thinkpad division apparently takes serviceability VERY seriously. They sell every single sub-assembly down to individual types of screws. I personally have ordered several tiny parts to replace in my Thinkpads.

I'm not sure what the contact points are for IBM Parts now that it's Lenovo. Previously you could call a number and order nearly anything that had an FRU number.

Re:IBM/Lenovo

[ThisNukes4u]

I have an IBM thinkpad made between the switch from IBM->Lenovo and have had no problem ordering parts straight through Lenovo using FRUs using the web interface. I would assume that they still sell the parts from old IBM thinkpads as well as the new ones.

Re:IBM/Lenovo: Confirmed: Lenovo sells IBM parts

[Anonymous Coward]

I can confirm that Lenovo still sells older Thinkpad parts. I have placed 2 orders (for older Thinkpad parts) from Lenovo in the last month. Both times they estimated 2 weeks to ship, but actually shipped the parts within a few days.

Re:

[Sangui5]

They sell *most* of the parts from old Thinkpads. They discontinued selling replacement batteries for T4x series machines; rather irritating because the T43 model was only introduced early last year, and now you can't get batteries for them straight from Lenovo.

On the other hand, you can get most of the parts, and the batteries are still in supply in the retail chain; I just ordered one from Newegg. IBM was absolutely stellar in terms of support; Lenovo seems to be not quite as good. Much much better tha

Re:

[mrbcs]

I'll second or third this. IBM are awesome. A couple years ago I was looking for this dumb little card to snap on to a server board. I have a PC 704 server. Thing is monstrous. Fun to learn on but a power pig. I wanted to put in the other 2 cpu's. I needed this little card to make them work. Went to IBM site, found the manuals, found the part number, thought "What the hell?" and called their parts dept. Not only did they have the thing in stock (this computer was made before 1999) they would gladly ship it

Re:

[kotj.mf]

A couple years ago I was looking for this dumb little card to snap on to a server board. I have a PC 704 server.

Damn. You should have called me. My employer just tossed a ton of 704's that we were using in production as recently as six months ago. F50's, too.

Re:

[Dadoo]

I wonder if this has anything to do with the "mouseball" story that was in one the popular computer magazines, 10 or 15 years ago.

Some columnist had an IBM PC with a mouse and his kids removed the ball and lost it outside. Apparently, the whole mouse cost something like $100 and, not surprisingly, he didn't want to pay that much, when he just needed a new ball. He went through an enormous amount of trouble to buy one, but IBM couldn't sell it to him, because they didn't have a part number for just the ball

Re:

[tilandal]

To be fair, try calling up any other company and asking for the ball of a mouse. I doubt they will give you the time of day.

Re:

[Random Destruction]

they might if it was a $100 mouse.

Re:

[b0s0z0ku]

To be fair, try calling up any other company and asking for the ball of a mouse.

Surely a biological supply company specialising in dissection specimens could sell you one. Though you might get further asking for a 'teste'...

-b.

Re:

[masdog]

I don't care who you are...that's funny right there!

Fujitsu not so great

[Cyphertube]

Years ago, we always had problems with Fujitsu/Siemens stuff. We had staff who bought their own notebooks, and then they were horrified at the replacement costs for parts, like an external floppy.

I've not had experience with HP for parts, but I know that I've had an easy time with Dell. I was able to order a replacement keyboard for my laptop, with minimal hassle (and that was in Switzerland, replacing a US keyboard with a Finnish one). Other places I've worked, we had it pretty easy getting replacement motherboards and so on.

Apple

[Foofoobar]

Believe it or not, alot of the parts in a mac laptop can be bought from dealers and people who fix them. Most want to install them but alot of repair sites will sell the parts to you direct.

I've bought Apple parts

[green pizza]

Over the years I have bought an internal video cable, hinge parts, rubber feet, backlight inverter, and a DC-DC power converter board, for about 5 different out-of-warranty PowerBook models. I've been successful at buying parts from Apple dealers, even Best Buy. Watch out, though, some dealers add a huge mark-up to parts and others will try to sell you on overnight shipping for a part that isn't really that crucial. Some dealers have even printed out portions of the official repair manuals (although I found

Re:

[jtorkbob]

Well, over the years I've done a lot of mac repair work, and I will tell you that while the community will cover you, Apple will not deal with you at all. One time I needed to replace the DC in board on my 18-month-old iBook - due to my own mangling of the adapter. This is a major labor part, requiring about 90% disassembly. Apple refused to let me do the work myself, despite the fact that I'd already disassembled the thing and my living room was covered in little labeled tupperware. The various dealers wer

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, alot of the parts in a mac laptop can be bought from dealers and people who fix them.

You can by parts for damned near any laptop from chopshops, via ebay or their websites.

That's not what the questioner was asking about, though. He wanted to know which manufacturers sold parts directly to the public.

100% WRONG

[SuperBanana]

Believe it or not, alot of the parts in a mac laptop can be bought from dealers and people who fix them. Most want to install them but alot of repair sites will sell the parts to you direct.

I can't let this slip. You're completely WRONG. You're talking about places like PBfixit, and sure, you can get parts there if you feel like paying +400% markups for USED parts (because they buy old Powerbooks and such, and rip them apart. NONE of their parts are new, because NOBODY CAN GET APPLE PARTS. This is pr

Re:

[Foofoobar]

NOBODY CAN GET APPLE PARTS

You know what helps when making blanket statements? Solid research. Because otherwise there is a solid chance you will be wrong and end up sounding like an idiot. Such as in this case.

With the exception of the casing, ALL parts are sold elsewhere; the manufacturers of the parts do NOT have exclusive agreements with Apple (including the manufacturer of that scroll wheelie). They can sell to whoever they want and those resellers can sell the pasrts to you.

Unfortunately, like

IBM/Lenovo

[binaryspiral]

I second the opinion that IBM/Lenovo treats in warranty and out of warranty users very well. Sure they'll sell you every part for your expired laptop, but in warranty treatment is equally good for those first few years of new laptop goodness.

Re:

[Jace Harker]

I'll second... er, third this opinion. They treat you VERY well, especially when you're in-warranty. But there's one kind of part they won't replace.... A day after I got my new IBM/Lenovo laptop last year, my cat jumped in my lap, snagged the Shift key with her claw, and snapped it in half. So I called IBM/Lenovo and said, "Can you send me a new shift key? My cat snapped mine in half." "Oh, no," they said, "we can't replace individual keys. We'll just send you a replacement keyboard. For free." An

Re:

[binaryspiral]

That's an unfortunate accident, and a great fix. If that should happen in the future when your laptop is out of warranty, those keyboards will be expensive. But I can understand not stocking every individual key and spring... that would make inventory even more of a nightmare.

Re:

[masdog]

I agree. I've had a lot of warranty work done on the two Thinkpads I've owned (they traveled with me to class, so they were bounced around a bit...and I bought the extended warranty knowing that I would be taking it with me to class). One of my unfortunate mishaps was having my screen hit by a flying dime/bottlecap while I was designing my fraternity's website. The part wasn't a warranty part, but the tech replaced it no-questions-asked and told me that it would be handled by the warranty.

Graphics Cards

[TubeSteak]

This (related question) came up in some other thread and I didn't have an answer:

Can you buy laptop graphics cards?
If so, where?

I'd think that being able to upgrade the video card would be a nice selling point, but AFAIK, nobody sells just the 'mobile' video card.

Re:

[MysticOne]

I'd think that was because the majority of them are integrated. Personally, I've never seen a laptop with a removable/replaceable video card.

Re:

[Artana Niveus Corvum]

For the models which don't have the video chips integrated into the motherboard, Dell sells the video cards for their laptops. There's no universal standard for how to "do" laptop internal components (unfortunately), but I have personally replaced the video card with an updated one from Dell twice now. =) (then I got a notebook that you couldn't do that with, but that had good enough video that I didn't care. XPS M1210... tasty =))

Re:

[Blakey Rat]

Laptops always have integrated video to save space. Where would you put the video card otherwise? They're jam-packed as is.

I guess I could see maybe removing the CD/DVD drive and replacing it with some sort of swappable video card, but then how do you load the game?

Re:

[n0dna]

It goes in a mini-slot underneath, just like the ram. They've been making them for 3 or 4 years now.

Re:

[fineous fingers]

For the most part the GPU is integrated (soldered) into the laptop motherboard. However a couple of years ago I wanted a "Gaming" laptop (which I never ended up buying.) I looked at Alienware and some other company and then I found these guys: http://www.m-techlaptops.com/indexofnotebooks.htm [m-techlaptops.com] Who make some (you'll have to check which models) of their laptops so you can upgrade the video card. I NEVER bought anything from these guys, I just thought it was a cool idea that they acutualy offer that feature. v

Re:

[Stonent1]

When the Dell XPS laptops came out, they were advertised as having upgradable video.

Re:

[Preacher X]

Alienware pioneered this afaik but others are picking up the reigns. As others have stated this is because most laptops have the video IC built into the motherboard and it is not able to be replaced.

Re:

[The Wicked Priest]

I remember when laptop RAM was nonstandard -- every manufacturer, sometimes every model had its own way to upgrade, if it had any at all. Now everyone uses SODIMM. Perhaps someday, laptop video will be standardized in the same way.

But not today.

Re:

[Hadlock]

Google for MXM chips. They're mentioned further upstream in this thread.

HP works.

[Anonymous Coward]

HP is fairly effecient and willing to sell you just about any part from a laptop. Some of the prices might be high for some things, but they'll sell you just about anything, from an upgrade part (buying a DVD burner if your laptop came with only a CD burner) to buying something as simple as a replacement power-button bezel like I recently did.

HP

[MjrTom]

I've been keeping a 7 year old HP alive for the past few years. For some stupid reason. Point is they never give me a problem when I order parts.

A ThinkPad..

[gweihir]

You can get components for these from the manufacturer. And they do not make any assumption about your competence level. Not too cheap, but I think the prices are still reasonable. I also think you can get the service manual online.

IBM / Lenovo

[Anonymous Coward]

I was happy to see IBM / Lenovo getting the support they deserve in this thread. I'm typing this on my IBM T42 which is currently running on several user-replaced parts (by me). Breakage was due to droppage twice, (this is my travel laptop and takes a beating daily) but it did survive a 17" monitor falling on it from ~8" above. I'm an engineer but I support all the laptops in our (small) company and all I order nowadays for new employees is Lenovo laptops. (note: I don't have any more issues with Lenovo than the older IBM thinkpads)

IBM / Lenovo provides detailed disassembly guides which are easy to find on the web. They detail (with pictures/illustrations) how to strip any of their laptops down to bare plastic.

I also like how they label the screws on the bottom so you immediately know which to remove first. For instance, 3 screws have a little pic of a keyboard next to them. Remove these and the keyboard comes out. Also each screw hole in the bottom has a '1' '2' or '3' next to it. A sticker on the bottom has full-size images of each screw with a '1' '2' or '3', so you can immediately find what length screw belongs in each hole. If you have ever had a pile of screws you need to put back in your laptop this feature should be immediately attractive.

This is my 3rd Thinkpad and I have torn all 3 apart multiple times. I have also torn apart Toshiba, Dell, HP and find the Thinkpads to have been the cleanest looking inside and easiest to work on. Also, if you get a chance, pull the HD out of a Thinkpad and notice how thin, light, and well-designed the carrier sleeve is that holds the drive and protects (insulates) the exposed PC board which is attached to the bottom of the actual drive. Clean and precise! The whole inside of Thinkpads are clean like that.

No doubt I like working on Thinkpads the best, and have probably fixed (torn apart with the hope of figuring out what is wrong) > 50 laptops over the last 10 years.

Btw I don't work for IBM/Lenovo nor even in the computer/electronics industry.

Re:

[athena_wiles]

Yes - I have to second this. I do a reasonable amount of hardware support, and I've interacted with Lenovo support for broken Thinkpads on several occasions. I'm always impressed with their customer support. I haven't gone through their training, but I've had them send several replacement parts under warranty (both user-replaceable and non-user-replaceable) with a minimum of fuss. Fastest, most-helpful tech support calls I've ever made.

I haven't had to call Dell in quite a while, as I'm now Dell

Re:IBM / Lenovo

[almost entirely lega]

One can only hope that Lenovo will keep up the unbelievably excellent support IBM had - and on that there is some cause for concern. Thinkpad warranties that used to be three years are now only one, upgradeable to three if you pay an additional fee. And the best part of IBM's service, EasyServ, the program under which you could Fedex your Thinkpad to IBM, and have them repair it and return it in the next morning's Fedex, is an additional fee atop the additional fee. My favorite old IBM Thinkpad story: I was in Oklahoma City, and dropped my 701C - the old Butterfly, from a height of about eight feet, onto concrete. Parts were hanging out of the cracked case...but the machine kept working, allowing me to backup as I called IBM. I explained what had happened to the customer service rep, who looked up the serial number, and advised me, "Oh...that machine's still under warranty. Fedex it to us...and we'll get it back to you." What, I asked, would it cost? "Nothing," he said, "it's under warranty, and the case is cracked." In a moment of looking the gift horse in the mouth, I reminded him that it was cracked because I'd dropped it. He said, "So? It's under warranty and the case is cracked. Put it in a box and Fedex it to us, and you'll have it back tomorrow morning." They'd put their repair facility next door to Fedex in Memphis, got the broken machines off planes and fixed them, putting them back on outbound Fedex flights whenever possible. While they had it, they also upgraded the BIOS. How great did I think it was? It's more than ten years later, and I still tell the story. And I've purchased seven additional Thinkpads since, four of which are still functional - because when a part goes down, not only do they (as others have mentioned) sell parts, they make sure you can do the repair yourself. On their website, they have decent written instructions, paired with videos of more complex repairs. And to this day, their parts service is fast and not overpriced.

Re:IBM / Lenovo: lilo/grub advice on official site

[Anonymous Coward]

This thread got me thinking about upgrading my Thinkpad and I ended up finding some LILO/GRUB advice for configuring the 2nd HD adapter that fits in the expansion bay to work under the 2.4 kernel.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/documen t.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-50366 [ibm.com]

Regardless of the utility of this specific information, I'd like to see more ~mainstream hardware companies standing behind Linux like this. In the meantime, I'll be ordering up a Thinkpad X60s tonight :)

The Laptop Guy

[horatio]

Not sure what your location is, but we have a place in Columbus (OH) called The Laptop Guy [laptopguy.com]. I had the exact same problem (charger daughterboard issues) with my Dell Inspirion 8200, and they said they could order the part for me if I wanted. If you can find a small repair shop (even some larger places like Microcenter are sometimes really helpful - found me a Winbook mini-pci wireless card that worked in the Inspirion) they might be willing to order and sell you the part.

This may be offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an old pentium3 gateway laptop. I have a processor to put in it, but I have no idea where I would find the thermal pad it needs, so it's just collecting dust right now. Does anyone know where you can find this sort of thing?

Re:This may be offtopic...Use Thermal paste

[Fallen Kell]

As long as there is a clip mechanism for the heatsink to be held in place (and the heatsink makes full contact to the processor), you can use thermal paste instead of the pad. The only reason most laptops (and desktops) even use thermal pads is because it is a lot more difficult to mass produce the PC with using thermal paste (i.e. there is a lot more "art" involved in using paste, applying the correct ammount, not too much or too little, spreading the paste evenly across the processor and/or heatsink). Bec

Works exactly as he says, in my experience.

[Futurepower(R)]

Good info. Mod parent up. Works exactly as he says, in my experience. If there is no clip, you may be able to improvise something that keeps the heat sink firmly pressed to the processor.

--
George W. Bush comedy and tragedy [futurepower.org]

Asus

[Flikkeh]

Asus sells replacement parts for many of their notebook models online at http://estore.asus.com/shop/category.asp?catid=363 [asus.com]. They also sell barebone laptops under the 'Built on Asus' name, where you supply your own CPU/RAM/HDD/DVD/WiFi.

Illegal?

[pnevin]

I'm not sure about the US, but here in Australia a manufacturer refusing to sell parts of their machines to the general public would run a pretty good risk of breaching the Trade Practices Act.

They'd just sell the parts at a ridiculous price, of course.

Sony

[punker]

I currently have a Thinkpad, but my previous laptop was a Sony Vaio. The electronics are still good, and are available through the numerous online part vendors.
http://servicesales.sel.sony.com/web/index.jsp [sony.com]
http://www.impactcomputers.com/ [impactcomputers.com]

Many of the mechanical parts have broken over time. I had to replace the touchpad, keyboard. and screen hinges. You also shouldn't judge the quality of the laptop by the parts that broke on me. I was not delicate with this laptop, and this all happened after 6-7 years of use

Re:

[fyonn]

I have to agree about sony, I picked up an old vaio sr11k which someone had removed the HD, and crucially, the HD cable from. that cable was the most expensive cable, for length I've ever bought. standard 44pin ide on one end, some wierd assed sony connector on the other. it cost me £50 (for a cable 1.5cm long), but they did at least sell it to me.

No third party repair shops?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Did you try to find a repair shop for the brand? How about buying a "for parts" notebook on eBay? I buy upgrades and parts by eBay pretty often, it's not hard, illegal or very risky, and most of my computers are pre-merger Compaq business computers.

Avoid Acer

[Craig Ringer]

Not only will they usually refuse to sell parts, but they don't provide driver updates to things like the onboard ATi video (and you can't get them straight from ATi because Acer modify the parts). As far as they're concerned if the old drivers passed QA at hardware release time they're perfect and any updates for any reason are unnecessary.

*gag*

Same with the other hardware on their machines, but most of that can be found on the chipset mfgr's sites with enough work.

Re:

[mypalmike]

I had an ecs laptop with the same issue about lacking ATI driver updates. I was able to install the unofficial Omega drivers [omegadrivers.net], which imporoved performance and worked flawlessly. Until I cracked the display of course. :)

Re:

[Craig Ringer]

Wow, thanks for the tip. I'd heard of those drivers but just assumed they were tweaker/overclocker stuff likely to lead to stability problems. To my astonishment they install and work fine on this machine, and don't even muck up the power management.

I still won't buy Acer ever again, of course, when people like Dell make better machines with better support (friend of mine has an XPS. Big and ugly but otherwise amazing)... but having a workaround for the driver issue is nice.

Re:

[fostware]

Acer sucks quality-wise, however.... ATI and nVidia sell quite a few GPUs to notebook manufacturers that do not stick to the reference designs. Toshiba & HP are other nVidia / ATI notebooks that won't take the default Mobility/ForceWare drivers.

Re:

[Osty]

Acer sucks quality-wise, however.... ATI and nVidia sell quite a few GPUs to notebook manufacturers that do not stick to the reference designs. Toshiba & HP are other nVidia / ATI notebooks that won't take the default Mobility/ForceWare drivers.

It's not that they change the GPUs (what, you think Acer et al have the ability to re-design and re-fab ATI/nVidia's chips?), but that the drivers just don't have the right enumerations for the laptop hardware. In most cases, this is a simple fix with a tool

Re:

[Craig Ringer]

Yep. It's not even that bad, though, if they release updates to their supported hardware when ATi puts out a new drivers. Unfortunately they neither do so nor acknowledge that there might be any reason why they should.

HP/Compaq - no problems getting parts

[gwait]

You can even download maintenance manual pdf's for free that show you where those 100 little screws go back in!

Hey Fujitsu, I will never buy a laptop from you based on this!

Try non-mainstream whitebooks

[gotgenes]

Consider looking at non-mainstream, customizable notebooks, known as whitebooks. These notebooks are often made by the same manufacturers as those of Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and other brand names. There are only a handful of ODMs (original design manufacturers), the companies that actually make the notebooks, in the world, the two largest being Quanta and Compal; ASUS lags behind them but is making its way up to the top three.

With whitebooks, you will never get a laptop cheaper than through, say, D

I hate to say it, but when it comes to parts...

[Myself]

Avoid Panasonic. I absolutely adore the Toughbook sitting in my lap, but the pinouts for the internal connectors are apparently lost in Amelia Earhart's logbook or something. eBay is the best place to find parts, because Panasonic doesn't sell jack shit direct to anybody. It's depressing.

My dad broke the USB jack on his old Thinkpad, and I recently tore it down to the bare motherboard. The construction was nowhere near as elegant as the Toughbook (like 5 different types/lengths of screws, as opposed to 2), but the whole teardown process is documented in drooling-idiot detail in a PDF on IBM's site. Of course, when I got inside, I found that the USB jack does not in fact match any of the ones I can get from Digi-Key, so it was all pointless anyway. I got to marvel at some absurd IBM engineering though, like the rotary heatpipe fitting to send CPU heat up behind the screen. A cast metal chassis would be so much simpler...

Dell and Lenovo

[W2k]

From what experience I have, neither HP nor Fujitsu-Siemens are worth shit as far as their laptops or support for the same go. They do not ship individual parts, take ages to do simple maintenance, and the boxes don't hold up very well. I recently worked in technical support for a major university who sold/loaned students laptops. By far, the Fujitsu-Siemens models caused the most problems, HP in a close second, then Lenovo, then Dell. And Lenovo/IBM and Dell were by far the easiest to get support for.

Which are bad?

[qaffle]

This may be a dumb question from the question being asked, but looking over the companies being listed as "good" (IBM/Lenovo/Dell/HP) which are people finding to be bad (including of course Fujitsu)?

Don't ask Fujitsu. Ask repair shop.

[Jarnis]

Fujitsu most likely fobbed you off because they do not have the logistics in place to ship 30$ parts around to individuals, so they claimed you need to be a rocket scientist.

Do you also commonly contact manufacturers to actually buy your laptops? Most manufacturers are not direct seller (dell is an exception). Manufacturers sell to distributors (and in case of parts, to certified repair centers), and that's where you have to ask for your parts.

Ask a certified, independent Fujitsu repair center - they most l

Re:

[Jarnis]

Must be US thing.

In europe, as far as I know, all the Fujitsu repair centers I know can resell parts freely. Fujitsu themselves only sell to repair centers.

Parts

[dismentor]

I've replaced the IO board in my Fujitsu-Siemens Computers laptop. You can get parts from: http://www.servicesource.co.uk/ [servicesource.co.uk]

Building a Laptop From Scratch

[Garrett Fox]

Is it feasible to build a laptop from scratch, or rather, from individual parts? (Starting with a pile of sand wouldn't be so good.) I've looked into buying individual desktop parts like hard drives and CPUs, but having bought a laptop a few years ago, I like its convenience and the concept of using up a small fraction of the power.

Re:

[larien]

I suspect not - ATX cases and the ilk can withstand a standard layout including a lot of dead space - laptops are much more closely packed and a component being 5mm bigger wouldn't fit in the right slot. During the time I've been working with computers, I've never seen much more than drives & memory being available to fit into laptops.

Re:

[wehe]

Here are guides and tutorials about building a custom selfmade laptop or notebook [repair4laptop.org]. You may also find some hints to make a so-called barebone or white-box laptop there.

Apple, of course!!

[Thumper_SVX]

Actually, though your mileage may vary I think the Fujitsu problem is really a problem of Fujitsu. Most notebook manufacturers will provide you parts with the caveat that if you're not out of warranty already you will be after you install your parts. In my life I've gotten replacement parts easily from Dell and Apple both. HP used to be great, but given all the reorgs lately I don't know what the hell's going on over there any more. IBM I found to be a pain to deal with, but selling you parts is not against

Replacement parts for laptops

[mknewman]

I've bought replacement parts for IBM (Lenovo) and Sony laptops direct from the manufacturer before. I've heard good things about Dell also, but Alienware turned me down for a replacement keyboard. Marc

Do-it-yourself Laptop Repair Guides

[wehe]

Besides the parts you often need repair instructions. Here are free repair tutorials and upgrade guides for laptops and notebooks [repair4laptop.org] from almost any manufacturer.